Tag Archives: world view

Le monde est vraiment petit

I’ve met SO many people in the last few days, French and international students alike, most of them quite randomly. In India, if you go out to a club or a party, everybody goes with their group of friends and mostly sticks to that group for the entire night. You will never run into someone on the street and become friends with them, it’s too random and potentially unsafe. However, in France, you can meet anybody anywhere and it’s not weird. Maybe it’s different here, because Rouen is not the same as Paris, for example, but that’s my observation all the same.

Rouen is much bigger than I thought it would be. I went into the city and it was mind boggling how everything seemed to stretch on forever! I’m waiting for it to start looking familiar because getting off on the wrong bus stop and walking for miles in the dark is not something I’d like to repeat!

Yet, it’s pretty small. A few days ago, I met a boy from Marrakech, Morocco. One of my good friends at Penn State is from Marrakech, so I casually mentioned it to my new acquaintance. Turns out, he knows him! Rouen is such a small city by comparison, I never expected I would run into anyone I knew (or who would know someone I know).

The truly amazing part? It happened AGAIN today! I was at lunch with a Parisian girl from my seminar along with some of her friends. Her friend inevitably asked me where I was from, and then proceeded to tell me how one of his friends is studying abroad in India for an entire year. In fact, I met a French student who was studying abroad in India this year at a friend’s house over the summer. So, taking a wild guess, I asked him if it was the same person…and it was! So crazy!

The world truly is a small place.


Location: Rouen Business School, Rouen, France

     The first four days of my trip to Turkey was to Istanbul. Yesterday after a trip to the old spice market, we got our flight to Hatay. After some turbulence, and an airsick neighbor on the plane, I settled in for an hour drive to Iskenderun. I am staying in a convent in Iskenderun with my group from Penn State.

     We were originally supposed to survey for about a month while in Iskenderun, but we were unable to obtain research visas due to a back up in the Ministry of Culture. Our professor informed us that it was not only our group, but just about every foreign Archaeologist that was unable to get the research visa. So we are going to follow our plan B. In this area of the world, people are very superstitious. They believe that if you are given the evil eye, you will be unable to get out of your bad luck unless you wear the charm of protection against it (its a blue pendant that has light blue, white and black swirls and dots. I would upload some pictures, but I am having  a hard time with the internet connection here. When I come back to the United States, I will be sure to place them on my blog). Our misfortune could be due to something like this occurring, problems within different governments, or the head sister at the convent praying to have open rooms for some traveling priests next week. It could also be just plain bad luck. However, without our permits, we are unable to survey, so instead we are going to visit pre-existing excavated sites, and look at how the archaeologist handle and protray their work to outsiders. We are still taking classes, but instead of shorter classes we will have 10 days of lectures that span for several (anywhere from four to seven hours a day) and we will be bumping up our presentations. 
     Last night I played several ball games with some of my group members from Penn State, a priest and Pilgrims from France. We started by playing volleyball with no rules then developed some rules. After a while we started to teach them four square which evolved to a game of six square then up to nine square. That was probably not the safest game I have played. It was interesting trying to teach the rules however, because the pilgrams spoke english, but the priest spoke german and italian with limited english. I have to admit that I am horrible at sports, so I was targeted when we were playing because I am almost a sure point for the opposing team. After trying to play nine square and failing, we tried a game of dodge ball. Oh, the fun that is dodgeball. One of the students on this trip was hit in the face with one of the first throws.

      Classes started today, and I was able to sit through them with no problem. We were given a coffee break early in teh day and later a “dinner” break (there is no lunch meal in Turkey. The main meal of the day is at lunch time, and it tends to be hot and large. When we would have supper, they eat a small meal with salads and soup. This is so after consuming a large amount of food, you are able to burn off some of the meal before going to sleep.

     Another event that occurred today was when I locked myself in the bathroom by mistake. The convent we are staying in is very old, and it has wooden doors with large metal keyholes. Unfortunately the lock sticks on the door, and when I locked it, I was unable to turn the lock back. After getting help from my professor, the graduate student, and five of the other students of the trip, I was able to get the lock to move. I was in the bathroom for about twenty minutes, and my professor had just gone to get help from one of the people who run the convent when I was able to get the lock unstuck. My bathroom is pretty tiny, and the window is too high to reach, so I am not sure how long I would have been able to stay in the bathroom without panicking. Now I think it was hilarious, but I was a bit frightened for a little.
     Right now I should be doing research for a project that is going to be handed in within the month, so I am going to go work on it. I am enjoying my trip so far, and I hope to learn much on this trip.  


Location: Apostolic Vicariate of Anatolia Cathedral of the Annunciation Yenisehir Mah. Mithat, Pasa Caddesi 5, P.K. 75, 31201 Iskenderun, TURKEY